I have Mint OS KDE Nadia running on my system. I've installed Cairo-dock and turned on desktop effects. A few days, 2 of my friend came to my home to watch a movie, Sherlock Holmes (we love Robert Downey Jr), rented from a local store. I turn on my computer, Its ready in 20 sec and within 40 secs we're watching the movie. After 2 hours the movie ends and they are curious about my OS. They were Windows 7 users and had never known what Linux was.

I showed them all the fancy desktop effects, the docks. I gave them the tour of my Nadia, and oh boy, you gotta see the look on their face. All they could say was 'WOW'. They really liked Dolphin, Gimp, Clementine, the ease at which I could do all my tasks. The only thing that they didn't like was LibreOffice. Well, I wined them! I'm a physics undergrad, by the way. Then I showed them the Software Center and how easily I can install my software and stuffs without any worries. Then I told them why Mint doesn't get virus infection and doesn't need defragmentation. And how fast my system was. How fast it could copy files and how neatly everything is arranged and doesn't easily get into a mess (we all remember how our windows desktop and start menu gets into a mess with all those icons and programs). And its not Windows, even after using it for years, it still doesn't show any sign of rot or corrupt registries. And after a solid 20 minutes tour....

"I gotta get me this OS.", "Where'd you get it from?", "Where can I get a pirated copy?", "Can you install this OS for me?"And I said, "Pirating Linux Mint is completely legal." Not only that they encourage you to pirate Linux.

After 3 days, I find myself sitting on their computer, installing Mint OS Nadia KDE and setting it up (installing Chrome and Wine). And I get occasional calls from them asking me, "How to do this?", "How to do that?" But they are really impressed. So, this is the story how I killed 2 windows pirates, 2 photoshop pirates. Dead. R.I.P.

For having my back, I'd thank the developers of- Mint OS- Debian OS- KDE- Gimp- Wine- and each and every member of all the Linux Community worldwide because you guys helped me when I had a problem.

LandOfConfusion wrote:I don't want to be harsh but that's not a good sign. If the UI isn't at least fairly obvious to smart people then it isn't doing it's job.

All I could say to that is that if it isn't a single button on a blank face, it has become too complex for most, even if the buttons are given names (presumably actions like ON, OFF, Power, Stop, Reset)--interface design whether it is a tool for manufacturing or some personal software is inherently more complicated than it seems to be at first, the designer can't possibly understand everyone's needs in regards to understanding of an interface style

That's funny..

Just check all the windows forums or Apple OSX forums--I assume those vendors think their desktop is simply so obvious that anyone might use it, nevertheless they provide help: that is a standard for any new device or system..

Possibly you might remember all the so called smart people who couldn't program their own VCRs' with clock running at a flashing:00

Smart has nothing if anything to do with practical understanding/experience or knowledge..--and in any case, is always a matter of opinion.

Apart from all that foohahha!A good story about possible conversion of generic window OS users and their application needs--lets hope they don't get too tempted by Ms new outlook domain where the other windows tools exist (office suite..), the all-in-one package ???

annadaprasad wrote:And I get occasional calls from them asking me, "How to do this?", "How to do that?"

I don't want to be harsh but that's not a good sign. If the UI isn't at least fairly obvious to smart people then it isn't doing it's job.

Truth is KDE is doing a great job and is the best Desktop Manager ever, except it eats a lot of memory. But then, any newbie will have questions. Don't say you never asked a question about how to do something when you were a beginner in a *proprietary* OS. Give a Windows and KDE to a 12 year old who hasn't had any knowledge of computer before, she'll most probably like KDE.

"Truth is KDE is doing a great job and is the best Desktop Manager ever, except it eats a lot of memory. "

Feb. 6th Ram Used.png (82.23 KiB) Viewed 2484 times

How? As KDE 4.10 startup desktop idle comes in around 470mb which comes in lighter than Cinnamon 14 on same system.Running Firefox 18 half a dozen tabs,gmail checker,Dolphin,Terminal open comes in just under 1gb at .98gb.Add darktable image editing of Raw camera files & Oklur with Manual open and Clementine music playing comes in 1.5gb-1.7gb.

How is that eating ram? Cinnamon always seem to run a couple of hundred megs above those figures for same things..

Orbmiser wrote:How is that eating ram? Cinnamon always seem to run a couple of hundred megs above those figures for same things.

Really? My system running Cinnamon takes about 300-350 megs with no other programs open. With Firefox (about 250 tabs open), Thunderbird, Krita and XChat it goes up to 1600 megs, but the bulk of that is Firefox. Cinnamon itself takes only 120 megs according to the system monitor.

Hmmm.. Have to check into it when I am again in Cinnamon as running KDE.Not sure if Everpad (Evernote),gmail notify and half a dozen additional applets where eating a lot more?Applets like Weather comes to mind. And had a calender screenlet and Conky running.

Think I remember when I killed everpad & weather and all other non-essentials got it down to 500+mb range.But the point really is everyone touting KDE bloated compared to Cinnamon,Gnome3,Unity,etc.. and not seeing it compared to all the other choices. Except for lightweight DE's from the get-go like xcfe,crunchbag,lmde,etc..

Ram use is really less of an issue than desktop performance. And for me Cinnamon wasn't as snappy or responsive as KDE is on same system..

I don't know what the problem with you guys but I really love everything about KDE. Though it is not lighter than XFCE or LXDE but it is lighter than cinnamon, gnome and really better than unity in all aspects. And KDE has a great set of applications like k3b, step etc. And I have tried Ubuntu Unity, openSUSE xfce lxde gnome, Mint KDE for debian and fedora for rpm. I finally settled down with Mint OS.

About Microsoft "tolerating" piracy: Yes, they will do so for some time to ensure market dominance, especially in developing and/or "non-western" countries. Later they will start forcing corporate users to get legal copies. By then there are not many people familiar with anything but Microsoft, so corporates will lack the know-how and human resources to use Linux etc. As far as I can see, this strategy works well.

This is why this story is so nice. The "pirates" got convinced by seeing Linux Mint / KDE as something better than MS Windows, not as a free and legal alternative to it.